LogicalMANIPULATIVE

False Equivalence

What it is

Treating two things as equivalent — in kind, degree, or moral weight — because they share some feature, while ignoring differences of scale, intent, evidence, or consequence that make the comparison misleading.

How it works

The form is: A and B share property P; therefore A and B are comparable, and whatever is true of one is true of the other. It is the argument from analogy with the critical questions skipped (Walton, Reed & Macagno 2008): are the similarities relevant, and are the differences decisive? The tactic works because equivalence feels like fairness. Boykoff and Boykoff (2004) showed how the journalistic norm of balance produced “balance as bias” on climate science, presenting a marginal position as the equal of a consensus; the same reflex makes “both sides do it” sound judicious even when one side does it at ten times the scale. Equivalence also flattens degree: “X is as bad as Y” is heard as a quantitative claim while being defended only as a qualitative one. The honest version is a rough comparison offered in good faith. The knowing version is a deflection tool — a small offense equated with a large one to neutralize criticism, or a fringe claim equated with an established one to buy it standing. The tell is that the shared property is named and the differences are never weighed.

Real-world examples

  • •Boykoff and Boykoff (2004) found that U.S. prestige newspapers from 1988 to 2002 gave roughly equal space to the view that humans were warming the climate and to the view that they were not, a balance that did not reflect the state of the scientific literature.
  • •After January 6, 2021, some commentators on the right equated the Capitol riot with violence at some 2020 racial-justice protests, and some on the left dismissed any comparison at all; the fallacy lies not in comparing but in asserting equivalence or non-equivalence without examining the dimensions — scale, target, intent, organization — on which the events differ or resemble each other.
  • •“Sugar is as addictive as cocaine” rests on a shared property (both engage dopamine reward pathways) while omitting the differences in dose, dependence, and withdrawal that the word addictive normally marks; the claim remains scientifically contested.
  • •“Both parties take corporate money, so they are the same” equates two parties on one dimension and generalizes to all dimensions; the amounts, sources, and policy consequences may differ substantially, in whichever direction.
  • •A manager equates an employee's late timesheet with a colleague's falsified expense claim as “both integrity issues,” which lets the smaller offense be punished like the larger — or the larger be excused like the smaller.

Ethical guidelines

  • ●When you compare two things, name the dimension of comparison and say how they differ on the dimensions that matter to your conclusion.
  • ●Do not use “both sides” as a substitute for measurement; if one side does a thing more, say so and say how much more.
  • ●Reserve words like “equivalent,” “as bad as,” and “no different” for cases where you can defend the quantitative claim they make.
  • ●Balance in presentation should track the weight of evidence, not the number of positions on offer.

How to defend against it

  • ►Ask for the dimension: “Equivalent in what respect — scale, intent, harm, evidence?” Then ask how the two cases compare on each; false equivalences usually collapse on the second dimension named.
  • ►Ask for the numbers where the comparison is quantitative in disguise: how many, how often, how much.
  • ►Distinguish comparing from equating; agree that two things can be compared, then insist that the comparison actually be carried out.
  • ►When equivalence is used to deflect (“your side did it too”), separate the two cases and evaluate each on its own; a second wrong does not resize the first.
  • ►Where a fringe view is given equal footing, ask about the weight of evidence behind each position rather than the number of people willing to state it.

References

  1. Boykoff, M. T., & Boykoff, J. M. (2004). Balance as bias: Global warming and the US prestige press. Global Environmental Change, 14(2), 125-136
    The empirical finding that balanced coverage misrepresented the weight of scientific evidence on climate change.
  2. Walton, D., Reed, C., & Macagno, F. (2008). Argumentation Schemes. Cambridge University Press
    The critical questions for argument from analogy — relevant similarity and decisive difference — that false equivalence skips.
  3. Tindale, C. W. (2007). Fallacies and Argument Appraisal. Cambridge University Press
    The appraisal method of weighing similarities against differences when evaluating comparative arguments.
Last reviewed
Suggest a correction

Detect False Equivalence in any text

Paste any message, email, or article into our free Manipulation Detector to see if False Equivalence or other techniques are being used on you.

Try the Detector FreeCreate Free Account